Bunbury and Rest of US Team Poor in Loss to Canada

The talk from many US fans heading into Olympic qualifying was that this US team could potentially medal at the Olympics this summer in London. Now the team faces a real possibility of not even making it to the semifinals in Kansas City next weekend after the U23 team played very poorly losing 2-0 to Canada tonight.

With Juan Agudelo out for the tournament with a torn meniscus Teal Bunbury got the start at the center forward position for the US national team. Bunbury had an unimpressive 56 minutes before being subbed out for Terrance Boyd. Things didn't get better for the US though, as Canada scored a goal off a corner kick as Bill Hamid didn't jump to claim the corner instead staying on the ground waiting for the ball to come to him. The Canadian forward leaped and headed the ball into the net. The US then threw the kitchen sink at the Canadians but couldn't create many good chances against Canada. Late on, Canada scored a second, again off a corner, as Ike Opara and Hamid combined to make a mess of the second goal.

While Bunbury had a poor game, he certainly was not the worst of the US players. That honor has to fall to Hamid or Opara who both had really poor performances.

That loss leaves the US sitting in 3rd place in their group with 1 game left. Canada and El Salvador are tied for first on 4 points, and Cuba is 4th with 0 points. That means the US needs a win on Monday against El Salvador to just qualify for the semifinals in KC. With Canada playing Cuba, Canada is likely to win the group. What that means is that should the US defeat El Salvador on Monday, the US will likely get a semifinal match up against Mexico. A match up for qualification to get to London. The match up that the US likely didn't want at this point in the qualification process. A huge disappointment of a performance by the US tonight.